


Sitting with Hell in a Hand Basket

by Rosie_E



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Dagon, Beelzebub is done with this shit, Defensive Dagon, Gabriel is just trying to keep himself together, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Michael will fuck you up if you mess with her demon, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Non binary Beelzebub, Protective Michael, Rating Might Change, Slow-ish Burn?, non binary character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie_E/pseuds/Rosie_E
Summary: "Needless to say, going from never-not-once having a missing persons case to essentially needing a whole new department for them in only three months was nothing short of astounding. And exceptionally concerning.But that was okay, because Gabriel had everything perfectly under control. Of course he did. He was an archangel, and not just any archangel – he was Archangel Fucking Gabriel. Under Control was practically his middle name!But, as with just about everything else in Gabriel’s life lately, it didn’t stay under control for very long. It could have, he had very little doubt. He was really quite certain that he could have handled all of it. But he had missed something. Something right under his very nose."After Armageddon't, angels have begun disappearing from Heaven, and demons have started going rogue in Hell. And, unfortunately for everyone, the only hope for restoring order sits on the shoulders of Gabriel and Beelzebub - if only they can figure out what the hell is going on.





	1. Everything is Under Control

It was a beautiful day.

Which was, really, to say that it was just like any other day in Heaven – it was a perfectly lovely, orderly, and unequivocally conventional day. There was nothing about it that was at all strange or unusual, or – worse yet – unexpected. Just your typical heavenly day.

And Gabriel, with his fingers pressed against his temples and a throbbing behind his eyes, was trying very hard to make himself believe that _any_ of this was true.

It really _was_ a beautiful day, not that the weather had much of a choice in the matter – but that is where the truth of it ended. Bright light glittered in from the tall pristine windows that lined his office and glowed against the stark white walls. Off in the back corner, atop a filing cabinet sat a small shimmering silver radio – standard in every office – that filled the space with the soft and soothing melodies of a harp.

But the splendor was currently lost on him, and had been for several days now. From the corner of his desk the damned photograph stared up at him, gloating in its unnatural glory. And despite his best efforts, he couldn’t quite help staring back at it. Because maybe, just maybe, if he did so long enough, it would burn to an ash and he could pretend that it had never existed.

* * * * * * 

Life in Heaven had taken a decidedly sharp left turn after the Apocalwasn’t (this was something that he’s heard Sandalphon refer to it as just last week and had done his very best to make it perfectly clear that it Wasn’t Funny). Getting the Forces of Heaven to stand down was not exactly what Gabriel would have called _easy_, per se, but it could have also gone a lot worse. But angels where, at their core, programmed to take orders and not ask questions.

Obviously though, there were some questions that could not be avoided – what went wrong? Was everything just on hold, or was it well and truly canceled?

And worst of all – what happens now?

All in all, Gabriel had been quite pleased with how he had handled everything. He had been upfront with his troops and made it clear whose fault it was and what was to be done about it (admittedly here he did have to choose his words wisely. There was no need to risk making a martyr out of a traitor). For now, everyone was to simply go back to work and there were many assurances given that Head Office would undoubtedly be in touch shortly with new instructions.

However, everything had begun to take a bit of a nosedive after the failed execution of the traitorous Principality. It had, quite obviously, not gone according to plan – in fact it could not possibly have gone further un-according to plan if it had tried. But Gabriel had made the conscious decision to stay positive. Either way, Aziraphale was no longer his or Heaven’s responsibility, and it was clearly a better idea to pretend he was dead even if they couldn’t make it truly so.

As far as everyone Upstairs was concerned, the Principality was mostly likely Fallen – Gabriel had let the rest of Heaven draw their own conclusions, it was easier that way – and he was finally out of Gabriel’s perfectly combed hair.

So yes, Gabriel had been very pleased with himself and had continued to be for the whole next month. Things were going wonderfully, and spirits remained high and excited with the fullest faith that they would be receiving the Next Steps in the New Plan any day now. It seemed for all the world that life had gone back to normal.

And in the second month after the Notapocalypse (another name he’d heard, and which was also distinctly Not Funny) things continued on in much the same way. Prayers were answered in a timely manner and miracles were approved and delivered. Paperwork, forms, and reports were all submitted on time and were collected, reviewed, and filed with efficiency. There was still no word from Head Office, but even that was seen as a good thing. After all, what happened at the Airbase _was_ rather extraordinary and She was no doubt thinking _very_ carefully about what needed to happen going forward.

It was around the fourth month, though, that a ripple of unease began to settle in. Michael and Gabriel had, very pointedly, made a show of standing firm in their belief that orders would be coming and that in the meantime it was up to everyone to keep things running as best they could. It was very clear by this point that they were are going rather _off book_, so to speak, but surely this would not last. She would let them know what to do next, and then wouldn’t She be so proud of them all for how well they kept it together and how patient they were? Patience was, after all, a virtue.

Gabriel had also made an effort to make himself more visible to the angels of Heaven. He went out on strolls and stopped to chat with the different departments. He needed to set the example for all others to follow. If he was calm and optimistic, then why shouldn’t they be?

It was partway through month seven when the first angel went missing.

Now admittedly, they were a lower angel from the Observation Department – one of many tasked with sorting through the many prayers that came in and filtering them through to the right places, or sending them directly up to the archangels if they were urgent enough. And Gabriel had, despite his own growing discomfort, tried his best to sweep the entire incident under the rug – to come up with a logical reason behind the disappearance and to feed to everyone until they believed it.

“Obviously, they observed something that required true and immediate action,” he decided. “And we should commend them on their bravery in going forthwith to take care of the concerning matter themselves. We will make sure to award them a commendation upon their return.”

Case closed. End of story.

Except that it wasn’t.

It had worked for a while. The chattering calmed down and after a week or so, no one thought anymore about it.

Until the second angel went missing. And then a third.

By the tenth month post apocalypse-that-wasn’t (still Not Funny), a total of twenty-six angels had <strike>fled</strike> disappeared from Heaven. And there was still no word from Head Office.

Now, you might be thinking – twenty-six angels? Well, that’s not all that many. And in all respects you are correct. There are, we can easily guess, millions of angels in Heaven. But in the last millennia Heaven has not ever, not even once had a missing persons case. And that is because angels are, after all, angels. They do not skip out on their duties; do not call in sick because they didn’t feel like working that day or go for walks and end up lost six departments over with no idea of how to get back, or even take impromptu vacations. They are ever-prompt and responsible and _are always where they are supposed to be_.

So needless to say, going from never-not-once having a missing persons to essentially needing a whole new department for them in only three months was nothing short of astounding. And exceptionally concerning.

But that was okay, because Gabriel had everything perfectly under control. Of course he did. He was an archangel, and not just any archangel – he was Archangel Fucking Gabriel. _Under Control_ was practically his middle name!

(Now, of course, Gabriel did not actually have a middle name, but on the rare occasions that he stopped to consider it, he like to believe that, if he did, it would be a very impressive one. Something like Constantine or Nicodemus.)

But, as with just about everything else in Gabriel’s life lately, it didn’t stay under control for very long. It could have, he had very little doubt. He was really quite certain that he could have handled all of it. But he had missed something. Something right under his very nose.

Almost a year to the day, Michael went missing.

He had no words for the awful twisting sensation that his stomach made when he, Uriel, and Sandalphon finally admitted to themselves that there was no real explanation for her prolonged absence. They had been able to keep it under wraps for about three weeks before they were forced to face it. They had searched her office and her private quarters. There was nothing left behind that provided any clues. Nothing was out of place, nothing was packed, there was no note. It was almost like she had never existed in the first place.

Which was of course, ridiculous, but it didn’t stop Gabriel from wondering, on one particularly depressing evening if she might have been some kind of mass-hallucination. Which was of course, also ridiculous, but what other answers were there?

“Why would she leave, and not let us know?” Uriel asked from her seat at the long, stark conference table, her hands wringing in her lap and her eyes staring, unseeing, out the floor-to-ceiling windows. They had spent the three hours wracking their brains trying to come up with something feasible.

“We’ll have to tell Heaven something,” said Sandalphon, and not for the first time, his face scrunched with anxiety. “There’ll be no writing this one off. We can’t hide that an archangel has vanished. Gone. Just, _poof_.”

“Of course we can,” Gabriel interjected, and with far more confidence than he actually felt. In fact, he was beginning to feel far more useless than he ever had before.

He plastered a smile on his face and Sandalphon cringed. “We can tell them…tell them…”

He paused, considering any number of possible things they could reasonably say and actively ignoring the twinging of his temples.

“We can tell them that she has taken it upon herself to personally go searching for the other missing angels.”

Uriel pulled her eyes from the windows and leveled him with a very disapproving look.

“We can’t lie,” she countered, her tone flat.

“But it’s not a lie!”

“It’s not the truth either!”

“Now, we don’t know that,” Sandalphon said. “For all we know, that’s exactly what she’s done. And we know about as much about her disappearance as any of the others, but you never had an issue with our explanations for them!”

Uriel shifted uncomfortably. “This isn’t right – none of it is. Angels do not just _leave_ Heaven for no reason. It goes against everything we are.”

There was a long, heavy pause where they all stared down at the table.

“What if she’s in trouble?” said Uriel, her voice was uncharacteristically contrite, and just a little choked. Gabriel could not remember a time, in all the many years they’ve worked together, that he’d seen her look so dejected. “What if they’re all in trouble and it’s just been too convenient for us to look the other way? What if…what if we’re the ones who have disappointed Her?”

Any pretense of strength and confidence drain right out of Gabriel. He hung his head and rubbed at his temples with his fingertips.

“We’ll find her,” he said, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as a plan began to form. It was a weak plan, but they would have to take it. “We will tell everyone that she has gone down to Earth to take care of matters” – Uriel opened her mouth to argue but he cut her off – “It’s not the _truth_, but since we don’t know the truth, it will have to do. And then we will look for her – just the three of us. If something _is_ wrong, I want us to know first. We’ll have to comb through the Earth Observation files. All of them since she left. She has to be down there somewhere. We’ll find her, and we’ll bring her home.”

When he lifted his head, Sandalphon and Uriel were both grim, but also clearly determined.

“Right then, let’s get started.”

* * * * * *

The announcement for Michael’s absence was made the next morning, and was met, generally speaking, with reluctant, superficial acceptance. It was becoming clear to all residents of Heaven that something more was at work than some ill-placed but well-meant jaunts down to Earth to help some humans. It put another twist in Gabriel’s stomach and cemented the creeping realization that he really was, well and truly, just a hair’s breadth away from losing all control over the situation. He needed to stamp out this unrest before it got completely out of hand, and he was going to need to find Michael to do that.

But finding Michael proved to be another matter altogether. They scoured and scrutinized every observation file from the last three weeks so thoroughly that more than once Gabriel had been convinced his eyes might fall right out of his head. But everything so far had come up empty. It was almost like she didn’t want to be found – she was certainly covering her tracks remarkably well. And what kind of place would she have wanted to go, anyway? She had never been one to visit Earth unless strictly necessary, and none of them could ever remember her mentioning one location as being more pleasant than another.

Three more months passed, and four more angels inexplicably vanished. In the wake of the most recent <strike>desertion</strike> disappearance, the archangels had finally been forced to admit that they didn’t know what was happening anymore. And that – as one demon that Gabriel refuse to acknowledge the existence of had once said – went over about as well as a lead balloon. Gabriel felt quite lucky that it hadn’t started an outright riot.

The best they had been able to offer was an honest and devoted focus in trying to figure it all out and to bringing everyone home, where they belonged. They establish a Missing Angels Investigation Department and put at the head of it all the most efficient and resourceful angels they could spare.

And the three of them continued, tirelessly, to try and locate Michael.

* * * * * * 

It was Uriel who finally managed it. The picture was the littlest bit blurry and taken at an odd angle, but it was clearly enough her.

“Montreal, Canada. Taken at 8:36 this morning,” she said coldly as she dropped the photograph on top of the Prayer Approval Form he’d been reviewing. Her mouth was tight and her eyes hard. Behind her, Sandalphon looked a little more than shaken.

Gabriel squinted down at the photograph.

It was undoubtedly Michael, strolling down a busy street in the bright morning sunshine. She was hand in hand with someone walking very close beside her. Her head was turned partly toward them, her strong profile in sharp relief. She was in the middle of saying something, her mouth half open and the person beside her grinned eagerly, pale eyes wide and transfixed – very obviously amused.

Gabriel absolutely refused to believe what he was seeing.

After all the trouble they had gone through, all the tireless days on end, there was Michael, looking for all the world more happy than she had any right to be, walking casually down a downtown street in Montreal holding hands with –

With a –

His stomach gave another, truly sickening twist –

With a demon.

With _Dagon_.


	2. Nothing is Under Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely nothing is under control. Not even a little bit.

Gabriel had tried his utmost over the last few days to imagine that the person in the Earth Observation photograph was somebody - _anybody_ \- other than Michael. He had even tried to convince himself on more than one occasion that the person was just your average run-of-the-mill human who happened to share a remarkable resemblance to their MIA archangel. Humans had a word for that, didn’t they? Like a dobleginder...dupplegander...dopplegunger – something like that. Maybe Dagon was out temping some poor, stupid human and the lighting was just off, creating the illusion. That would be a clear and relatively innocent explanation.

But he was lying to himself, and he knew it. Michael had run away from Heaven, and apparently had done so to be with a _demon_.

Gabriel had never been more confused, or exhausted.

After all they had been through - all the battles they had fought and won together, all the times they had turned to each other for support or assistance as the world grew and changed and evil continued to find cracks to chip away at. After all the trouble that had been caused by that _stupid principality and his equally moronic demon_ \- how could Michael leave them like this?

With more than mild reluctance, Gabriel picked up the picture from where it lay on the corner of his desk, half hidden under the forms and documents that his mind had had no time for since the Discovery, and slumped back in his chair. With the toes of his highly polished shoes, he spun the chair around in a lazy circle as he scanned over the image yet again.

Michael was smiling. Which made absolutely _no sense_ \- there was no reason for _any_ angel to be smiling in the company of a demon, especially when that demon was _touching_ them. But she was. The sepia tones couldn’t mask it, and there was a very clear slight upturn to the corners of her mouth. There was also an ease in her posture that Gabriel was sure he’d never seen before.

It made his nauseous. It was just so, so wrong.

He hadn’t had the chance to discuss the Discovery with either Sandalphon or Uriel since it had been unceremoniously dropped on his desk. Uriel hadn’t stuck around long enough to get a word out and Sandalphon had scurried out after her. Since then, they had both made themselves particularly scarce. Sandalphon, he knew, had more of less locked himself in his office and buried himself under any and all work that he could. He knew this because all the reports he finished would then materialize themselves on Gabriel’s desk, and the stack was amassing at an alarming rate.

Uriel...well he wasn't as sure about her. He had overheard from a passing conversation between two angels walking near his office door (which did _not_ count as eavesdropping if they talked that loudly) that she had gone back to the Observation Department and had not been seen since. It seemed to be the general consensus that she had appointed herself the Head Angel in the struggle to locate and retrieve Heaven’s other missing persons.

Gabriel doubted very much that she had ever announced such a thing, but it was easy to see why her actions might be interpreted that way. The truth of it was that Uriel really only had two settings – austere professionalism and – though Gabriel hated to use the word to describe a fellow angel – _anger_.

And Uriel was furious.

He absent-mindedly ran his finger along the edge of the photograph and frowned.

She had never been particularly close to Michael, but she also wasn’t particularly close with much of anyone. There might have been a mildly warmer comradery between them, but Gabriel was fairly sure that it was more the outright betrayal of Heaven that now fueled Uriel’s fury rather than concern.

And Uriel had been concerned about Michael – genuinely worried – which would now provide only more salt in the wound. If Uriel was scouring the Earth Observations, it was with more of an interest in stamping out traitors than it was in locating wayward agents.

“Why did you do this to us, Michael?” Gabriel wondered aloud. He had stopped spinning the chair and now only scowled down at the image. “Of all the reasons to run off, and of all the demons” - he still cringed at the thought - “that you could have chosen, why did you have to pick _that_ one?”

He snorted to himself rather ungracefully at the ridiculousness of it all, and a sudden mix of irritation and disgust flared inside him. In a mocking tone he continued, “Dagon, Lord of the _Files_, Master of _Torments_, right _bloody_ hand to Beelzebub, Lord of - _Fuck!”_

Gabriel dropped the photo as the sudden realization hit and then ran his hands over his face, letting out a low and agonizing groan.

Beelzebub. He hadn't even considered _them_.

But if the picture was real – and it was, without doubt, _disturbingly_ real – then not only was Heaven missing an archangel, but Hell was also missing a key member of its upper management.

He was going to need to call a meeting with Beelzebub, there was no way around it. It was one thing for only angels to go missing, but if – as this whole mess beginning to indicate – demons were possibly going rogue too, then both sides were going to have much bigger problems on their hands rather sooner than later. They needed to nip this before things got even further out of control.

Gabriel leaned down the retrieve the photograph from where it had fluttered to the floor. He just had to figure out how best to let Beelzebub know what had been found. They were ornery and unpleasant on their best days, but if they had been dealing with half of what Gabriel was – which he was beginning to think that very probable – he expected that they would likely near their height of belligerent and hostile. He would need to be careful in his wording - break the news as gently as possible while still conveying a sense of severity and urgently. They were going to – though the idea made Gabriel want to gag – need to work together to get their respective side back in obedient, regulated working order. He needed to make sure they started off on the right foot.

_Or…_ he thought, as a truly bad, really awful idea came into his head. He would regret it later, no doubt, but at that moment it was just too sweet and vindictive an opportunity to pass up. Just the thought gave his heart the briefest shred of joy he’d felt since the Not-End-of-the-World.

So instead of the formal Inter-Office Meeting Request Form to be signed, stamped, and sealed before appearing miraculously on the desk of the Prince of Hell, Gabriel reached for his favorite purple fountain pen and in obnoxiously elegant script wrote, right next to Dagon’s grinning face - 

_Missing Something?_

And before he had the chance to change his mind, the photograph vanished. It would appear, only seconds later, deep down in the depths of the basement.

The floor trembled, and Gabriel smiled.

* * * * * *

Life in Hell had been a clusterfuck since the Rebellion of the Useless Antichrist. In the direct aftermath, Beelzebub had barely been able to restrain their troops, and even then, they weren’t able to completely prevent the riots. Skirmishes broke out in every circle of Hell and lasted for weeks. Demon raged against demon for no other reason besides the all-encompassing, rampant waves of hatred, fury, and discontent that consumed them. They had been slighted, given the short stick, _screwed over_ in the one _single_ event at which they could have taken their ultimate revenge.

There was no subduing them completely. The Discorporation Office had never been so busy, or so short-handed, but it was something they would have to ride out. Beelzebub refused to admit that they had taken to hiding in their office, but there was only so far they could stretch that truth. They couldn’t risk their own discorporation right now, when everything was so fragile. There was still a healthy does of fear felt for the Dark Council, and if that was compromised, Hell just might implode on itself.

So they stayed in their office, only leaving for meetings, and on a handful of occasions, to re-instill the terror of Satan in the areas that had gotten particularly out of hand. They were fairly sure that Dagon was the only one that actually enjoyed those assignments – she had earned her title, Master of Torments, most thoroughly and delighted at the opportunity to exercise it.

It was the constant in-fighting that had prevented Lord Beelzebub from noticing the early defectors. To have demons go missing was not unusual in Hell, even before the Armageddidn’t-Live-Up-To-Fucking-Expectations. There was always aggression and clashing between various parties at any given time. If someone didn’t show up for duty, it was probably because they had pissed someone off and were currently hiding in a cabinet or under a table in some forgotten corner. They would either show up again in a week or two after it had blown over, or in the discorporation office if the angered party managed to find them and drag then out, kicking and screaming. It happened all the time.

In the aftermath, there was very little likelihood of finding anyone you were looking for, no matter how hard you tried. Duties were ignored and no one was keeping a head count. It wasn’t until things began to settle down about six months afterwards – once it was clear that the End Times were likely to magically restart any time soon – that Hell began to notice that their workers were coming up short.

Lord Beelzebub started receiving complaints from various departments, but they’d ignored them. The riots were not completely passed and they didn’t have time to go rounding up wayward demons only to drag them back to work. They weren't their parents. Such tasks were beneath them.

But the complaints kept coming in and the number of missing demons kept getting higher. Eventually they couldn’t ignore it any longer and had decided to put Dagon and Hastur on the case – Dagon because she was as efficient as a blood hound in tracking down anything and everything, and Hastur because Beelzebub had gotten increasingly more exasperated with his moping. They were sure that no one had been more excited to watch Crowley burn in Holy Water than Hastur, and when that failed tremendously and he was forbidden from taking personal revenge, he had fallen into a deep and gloomy depression. It was more despair than even they, the Prince of Hell, was willing to put up with for extended periods of time.

What they brought back was both mildly alarming and growing steadily worse.

Many demons were entirely unaccounted for. They were not at their stations and there was no recent records of them in the Discorporation Office. No one could remember seeing them fleeing in terror to the dark corners to find a place to hide, and in some cases, no one had seen them in a month or more.

The only explanation was that they had gone to the surface. Beelzebub highly doubted that anyone had gone after Crowley specifically – even after the disturbing not-execution, they had made sure to spread a rumor that Crowley had been tortured and obliterated by other means. The “other means” had not been specified, but the now-common understanding that there were other, possibly more painful ways of killing a demon permanently had been a nice threat to hold over the heads of the particularly enthusiastic war-mongers, despite the fact that it wasn’t really true.

Beelzebub had wanted to believe that those who had gone to the surface, though having done so without permission, had gone with the intent of taking their frustration out on humans rather than on each other. This was something they had no problem with. They could torment the humans as much as they wanted and they would let them go on their merry way to do so.

But Beelzebub had a bad feeling about this – and not the kind of bad feeling they generally enjoyed.

Once again, they put Dagon on the case. They didn’t send Hastur with her though – they were too concerned that, if permitted to go up, he would go against order and head straight for Crowley. No, for now it was best to keep Hastur close by, despite his insufferable pinning.

That had been a mistake.

In the first month on the surface, Dagon reported back with reasonable consistency. She had found some of the renegades, and though the reports were vague, Beelzebub had trusted that Dagon was working hard to get at the root of whatever was going on. In fact, of all the demons in Hell, Dagon was the only one that Beelzebub could genuinely say they trusted. Trust was dangerous, but they _knew_ Dagon. If anyone was going to get to the bottom of it, it was her. So they took the vagueness of the reports as a sign that their gut had been right – the defections were not all that they seemed.

Then the reports began coming in fewer and father between. There was less and less detail given, but they again assumed there had to be a good reason for this.

And then the reports stopped coming in altogether.

After a full month with no contact, Beelzebub tried texting Dagon, demanding an update. When they got no reply, they tried calling. It went straight to voicemail. And after another two weeks, it didn’t ring through at all.

Worry is not an emotion that Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, had ever had much experience with. And as such, they spend the next week being entirely unsure as to how to proceed.

Against their better judgment, they eventually sent Hastur up. He was on strict orders and under pain of torture to track Dagon and Dagon _only_, but even as they watch him ascend to the surface, they wondered if they were making another mistake.

Hastur returned to Hell after only eight days. He’d been able to track her as far as St. Petersburg, Russia. There, smashed and discarded, he had found her phone in the bottom of one of the sixty-four Fountains of Peterhof. The trail went cold after that.

Denial was another thing that Beelzebub was not much familiar with, but which became a close companion after Hastur’s discovery. They had started keeping a list of every possible explanation. Dagon could have been attacked. There could have been a nasty conflict with a rogue demon, during which she lost the phone. Perhaps she had garnered the notice of an angel and was trying to shake them off her trail. She could have been beaten within an inch of her life – enough that she was laying low to recover, but not enough for her to show up back in Hell needing a new corporation.

Hastur was assigned her responsibilities in the meantime as the paperwork piled up and there was still no contact. He was horrible at it, no doubt ruining their entire filing system, but that was probably as much due to his inexperience with the tasks as it was the constant fear he lived in as Beelzebub’s moods became more and more unpredictable. The more time passed, the more their worry turned to irritation, and then from irritation to anger. Anger was an emotion that was much easier to deal with.

Lord Beelzebub was already in a particularly foul mood when the photograph materialized, very neatly in the tarnished round platter that lived on a small table by their desk specifically for mail from Upstairs. For a moment, they ignored it. The riots had mostly died out by this point, but there was still a group in level three that seemed keen to start them back up again. They had been given two warnings already – the first one had been for the sake of keeping with policy, the second had spilled blood. They were, however, apparently more stupid then they looked and would have to be dealt with more thoroughly this time. The issue itself had brought Dagon to the forefront of their mind, as the usual one to deal with such things, and they let out a low but vicious snarl.

At work by one of the rusting filing cabinets, Hastur cringed. He was crying again, but he was doing that a lot these days.

That was when Beelzebub looked over and saw the photograph. Saw Dagon, grinning and relaxed, eyes fixed on a fucking archangel with more fondness than any demon should have had the capacity for. And then there was Gabriel’s sardonic note written in his loathsome, _perfect_ handwriting. Mocking them.

Beelzebub’s snarl turned to rage. Flies swarmed around them in black, buzzing clouds and they swore in at least eight different languages – only five of them being human – and hellfire burned hot in their eyes and at their fingertips. The photograph when up in flames in seconds, as did about half of the paperwork on their desk. They kicked over the table with the platter.

Snatching their phone and them stomped with ferocious purpose out of the office, leaving scorched footprints behind and slamming the door after them. Out in the corridor, demons scurried away to take cover and Beelzebub's voice could be heard screaming, _“You fucking bazzzzztard!”_

Behind the filing cabinet, scrunched down as small as possible, hid Hastur, his teary eyes wide and a cold sweat running down his face as he shook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! The encouraging response to Chapter One inspired me to finish Chapter Two much sooner than expected. Generally, I will aim to update on a weekly basis, life willing. Thank you to everyone who commented and/or left kudos!
> 
> For anyone interested, you can also follow me on Tumblr at https://trashbabyrosie43.tumblr.com/


	3. Deep in the Dungeons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Beelzebub meet to discuss the disappearances, and Beelzebub greatly enjoys making Gabriel uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter turned out to be much longer than intended. But I couldn't find anywhere to end it sooner. The dialogue for this meeting was weirdly difficult to write, so I hope everything flows well enough!

Gabriel had taken no small amount of joy in the phone call that followed the trembling of his office floor. The dialogue that ensued had been more a long string of profanity than an actual conversation and had been followed closely by a demand for an immediate meeting and ended with many crude threats made against his corporation if he was late. Gabriel relished in it. Finally, the first glimpse of normalcy he’d seen in more than a year.

Beelzebub had made it clear that they were meeting on their terms and so Gabriel sat back with a smug grin, his feet kicked up, and waited for further instruction. Given the current state of Beelzebub’s tempter, he had no doubt that they were going to select an unsavory venue – they always did when it was their turn to choose, and the selection had ranged greatly over the years. Gabriel cringed just a little as memories of past meetings flickered through his mind. _Thank God_ they had been few and far between.

Beelzebub had, especially in more recent centuries, forced him to work in places far seedier and stranger than he had ever dared to imagine. Wherever they summoned him to this time though, at least it will have been well deserved. It could be in the basement of a rancid brothel, the worst room in a roach-infested motel, or even an abandon and rundown warehouse – at least this time he had earned it, and he would be able to take enough self-satisfaction in that to put up with any venue for the few hours that the meeting was likely to last.

What materialized on his desk, however, was very far from anything that he had been expecting. Usually, when Lord Beelzebub sent him meeting instructions, they showed up in the beautiful golden dish on his desk scribbled haphazardly on an old and dirty napkin, or on an equally filthy piece of paper. Usually it would only be the name of the place, unless they were feeling particularly generous and had decided to give him an actual address. What popped into being this time, though, was none of those things.

It was a rock. And it was evil.

Despite its small size and unassuming appearance, Gabriel’s automatic response was to recoil. Unsettling levels of rage, misery, and despair radiated from it; pulsing like a headache or the fear left behind by a bad dream – trapped and stuck on replay.

A cold chill went down his spine. Somehow, he didn’t think he was being summoned to a run-down motel in the red-light district this time. No, this was going to be much worse.

Perhaps he should have reconsidered his note on the photograph.

He stared at the stone, having pushed his chair as far away as the other end of the desk. The energy it exuded was the residue of an old anguish. Centuries at least. Wherever it was from, Gabriel was willing to bet it had ghosts. Gabriel hated ghosts.

From inside his coat pocket, his phone pinged and Gabriel nearly jumped out of his skin.

_Scared, wankwings? I’m waiting_

At the end of the text was a little red demonic emoji, which might have been a show of humor, or might have been a threat. It really could go either way.

Gabriel cringed again. He should have known better – really, he should have. No one could pull off vindictive or petty vengeance better than the Prince of Hell. They had probably invented it. But it was as the humans say – you can’t have you cake and lie in it too.

Wait, no, that wasn’t right. Didn’t it have something to do with a bed?

Either way, he had brought this upon himself and would only make it worse the longer he hesitated. The threats against his corporation were still ringing in his ears, though he still wasn’t sure what half of them had meant. He would rather not find out. It would only be a few hours anyway. He could withstand anything for such an inconsequential amount of time. He was an archangel, wasn’t he?

With a great deal of trepidation, Gabriel stood from his chair and squared his shoulders. With an only slightly sweaty palm, he reached across the desk and picked up the rock.

It didn’t burn him, though he’d half expected it to. There was, however, just enough black magic in it to set an ache in his knuckles that would take hours to fade. With his free hand, he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a vial of holy water.

Better safe than discorporated.

“Alrighty then,” he said, before taking a deep breath and letting the rock tell him where he needed to go.

* * * * * *

It was the ugliest castle that Gabriel had ever seen.

It was large and intimidating, yes, but it was also incredibly boxy and square and had absolutely no adornments to redeem it. There were no turrets, no arching windows. Not even a single grand tower. Just a tall, grey, stone box besmirching the otherwise lovely countryside.

And the inside was entirely in ruins.

Gabriel grimaced, scrunching his nose as he stared at it. If he had thought the rock was bad, it didn’t compare to the rest of the building. Bad things, _truly_ _awful things_, had happened here. And though they made no actual sound, he could practically feel the walls screaming. It made his stomach do uncomfortable things.

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. There were definitely going to be ghosts.

But there was also work to be done and a much bigger picture at stake. Gabriel pulled himself up to his full height and gathered as much angelic energy around him as he could. Prepared and determined to do what was needed, and to get back out as soon as _absolutely_ possible, he strode in through the front gate.

There were some interior walls still standing and some doorways that were stable, but most were half-fallen or had been eroded away by years of exposure. Where the structures became too precarious, modern platforms with stairs and railings had been installed so that guests – presumably tourists, though anyone who came here willingly was, by Gabriel’s definition, _insane_ – could explore with ease. All the upper floors had long since come down and the only thing above him as he entered was open sky.

He could feel Beelzebub here. There were old, lingering traces that clung to the stonework with the rest of the pain and gloom, but he could also feel fresher traces – stronger and very much alive. And also very close.

Gabriel looked down at his feet.

_Ah_, he realized. _The dungeons. Of course._

Beelzebub never did anything by halves.

Gabriel began to pick his way along the ruins and walkways. But every few steps he found himself glancing over his shoulder. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and here and there he could have sworn he had seen something move, just out of his direct line of sight. He paused a moment and held his breath.

There, just off to his left. He’d heard it. The rustling of fabric.

He picked up his pace and tried to reason with himself. _There’s no reason the be afraid. You are an angel. Ghosts can’t hurt you._

And then, back a little ways on the platform, he suddenly felt the vibration of another set of footsteps, heavy and aggressive. They were following him.

Gabriel hurried his pace again, just short of a jog. He was not going to run away, no sir. Especially not from something he couldn’t even damn well see.

A few minutes and at least one wrong turn later, a high-pitched, agonizing wail pierced the afternoon air.

Gabriel ran.

He didn’t know where he was going. Seconds felt like ages as he passed through one doorway and then another. And then there was a set of stairs that went around and around and down, down, _down_, and then there was nothing. Just darkness.

Gabriel froze. He squinted, trying to see anything in the inky blackness. His heart beat like a hammer in his chest and his breath was coming out in gasps. Very cautiously, and shaking slightly, he reached out one hand and then another, stumbling around in the dark until he found a wall. He huddled against it for a moment, and then kept moving, making sure to keep contact with the stone. As with the little rock, he could feel the black magic seep into his joints, but it didn’t hurt enough to give up the security the wall provided.

His eye couldn’t adjust to the darkness. It was so absolutely pitch black that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see anything. His irregular breathing echoed against the walls and there was a clammy stickiness to the air the further along he moved.

And then, after minutes of being able to hear nothing over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, the stone wall he had been leaning against disappeared. He stumbled into the now-empty space and flailed trying to regain his balance. When both feet were firmly back on the ground, he looked around. The only thing he could see were two large, bright blue eyes staring back at him.

The response was automatic. Gabriel hadn’t meant to do it. Panic seized him, and without warning his right fist shot out. It collided with something solid.

“_Szzzzhit_,” a voice hissed out of the darkness. _“You flying feathered prick!”_

Gabriel’s brain stalled for a moment. He knew that voice.

Then there was light. It came from an oil lamp set on an old, rotting table pushed up against the wall of what was now clearly an old cell. And there, hunched only a few paces away, both hands cupped around their nose, blood dripping down their chin and onto the old stones, was Beelzebub.

“What the actual _fuck_?” they hissed accusingly.

“You scared me!”

Beelzebub eyes narrowed and they glared at him. “_Yezz_, that wazz the point. You weren’t supozzzed to punch me!”

“I didn’t know it was you!”

Still glaring, Beelzebub removed their hands from their face. Gabriel had the decency to wince. Their nose was definitely broken – crooked at an awkward angle and with their hands gone, blood dripped more freely down onto the floor. They wiped their palms down the front of their coat.

Even without the broken nose and fresh blood all down their front, Beelzebub was clearly looking more worse for wear than usual. Their hair was as much a mess as ever, the ever-present fly clung precariously to one side of their head. But there were also new, unfamiliar stains that littered their clothing – one being a particularly large stain around their right knee which Gabriel felt safe in guessing was more blood, but not very likely their own – and a tear that threatened to disconnect their left sleeve from the rest of their coat.

Gabriel shifted awkwardly.

“Do you, ah…would you…like for me to fix that?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at their face. Beelzebub’s eyes met his and held them. They stared for an uncomfortable length of time and then, with a sickening crunch, their nose righted itself on their face of its own accord. A new stream of blood landed against the old stone floor.

Gabriel gagged.

“Szzit down, shit stick,” they seethed.

Gabriel looked over at the table and saw two chairs that he hadn’t noticed before. They were both in various states of decay and covered in decades’ worth of dusk. Feeling no small amount of grief over the desecration of his dove-grey coat, Gabriel hesitated only briefly before he sat. The chair groaned and complained under his weight, but it didn’t collapse. Across the table, Beelzebub took the other seat and pulled a thoroughly abused notebook from inside their coat. From one of their other pockets, they produced a small collection of mismatched pens.

“Sooo,” Gabriel began, eyes flitting from one dark corner to another, clearly still agitated. “Where exactly are we? I mean, obviously this is a dungeon, and a particularly unpleasant one but - ”

“Hermitage Cazztle,” Beelzebub interrupted. Their mouth spread into a slow, wide grin, showing off two straight rows of bloody, pointed teeth. “I have many..._fond_ memoriezz here. Ezzpecially the early 14th century. _Lovely timezzz_. I thought you might...enjoy it.”

“I...see.” Gabriel was very sure that he did not want to know what Beelzebub might classify as _lovey_. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, ignoring the way it whined. “And um, the noises, screaming...footsteps upstairs” - he cautiously raised one hand to point ceiling of the cell - “That was just you, right? All part of your rather childish, petty revenge?”

Beelzebub’s grin did not falter and they only stared at Gabriel, unblinking. Overhead, from some distant part of the castle, another sharp wail echoed. He quickly retracted his hand and sent a nervous glance over his shoulder at the cell door as though expecting some terrible specter to suddenly appear there.

It was probably best if he changed the subject. This was a business meeting, after all.

“Soo,” he tried again, straightening up in an attempt to regain some of his dignity. “It would seem that we are both having some, um, issues with our subordinates.”

Beelzebub’s grin sank into a scowl. “Yezz, subordinates _and_ _colleagues_.”

“Right,” said Gabriel, “Yes, right. Michael.”

“_And_ Dagon.”

A heavy pause hung between them. Eventually, Beelzebub sighed.

“I think,” they said, “that we should start at the beginning of these _izzzues_ and work forward from there. I am azzuming that Michael izz not the only renegade angel?”

Gabriel contemplated for a moment just how much he should divulge. Never before had Heaven let Hell in on such classified information. But never before had angels willingly fled Heaven, either.

Beelzebub stared at him blankly, waiting. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, it was easy to see that the circles under their eyes were darker than usual, and their skin was of a more waxy pallor than could ever be considered healthy – though that could possibly have as much to do with stress as their recent blood loss. Gabriel briefly wondered just how bad things had been in Hell lately.

“Yes,” he finally admitted. “Other than Michael, we have had thirty disappearances so far. We have not yet been able to identify a common cause.”

Beelzebub nodded slowly and made a note.

“And in Hell?” Gabriel prompted.

They twirled their pen between their fingers a few times, and then tapped the end of it against the paper.

“Hell doezz not have a sure head count. Yet. The recent riotz have made thingzz more difficult. I am sure you underzztand.” They paused just long enough for Gabriel to nod. “I expect, though, that there are more demonz at large than angelzz.”

That took Gabriel a little off guard. His eyebrows scrunched together. “Why do you say that?”

“When did you start noticing the angelzz going mizzzing?” They asked, ignoring his question.

“Eight months ago.”

“And have they gone mizzing at a steady rate, or sporadically?”

“Uh. Both?” he gave them a confused look. “It’s not like we’re losing one every two weeks on the dot, but they also aren’t disappearing in groups. Just, you know, every so often.”

Beelzebub nodded again and jotted down a few more points.

“How many demons are unaccounted for?” Gabriel asked, with genuine curiosity, and just a touch of concern. “That you are certain of.”

They didn’t look up at him. Instead they kept their eyes on their notes and began scribbling something else.

“Twenty-eight.”

“But you think there are more.”

“Yezzzzz,” they dragged out the word. Gabriel waited for further explanation, but they said nothing more.

“Do you have someone looking into it?” Gabriel ventured after a long moment’s silence. “Taking a head count, that is.”

Beelzebub’s pen stopped and they looked across the table at him. “I _did_.”

_Ah_. Well, this was awkward.

They set their pen down carefully and placed their elbows on the table, their chin resting on top of their hands. “The data is not yet conclusive, but I believe the first dezerterzz went to the surface a month or two after the failed Apocalypzze - when the riotzz were at their peak. It would have been easy then, to slip away unnoticed.”

From somewhere else on their person, they suddenly produced a stained and worn manila folder. They threw it down on the table in front of Gabriel.

“Dagon was originally sent to retrieve them. Her reports...leave much to be dezzired.”

Not bothering to hide his disgust at the unidentifiable stains, Gabriel flipped open the folder and began shifting through the reports. Many of them were of a moderate length, though most were rather short. This surprised Gabriel. He had seen Dagon’s reports before. Working with Hell, however loosely, was nothing new - it was, more often than not, necessary. He had on more than one occasion needed to review her meticulous work in the past. _This_ was far from her usual level of quality.

He read completely through the first few reports, dated months ago, and then only scanned the handful following. As the timeline progressed, a curious thought occurred to him.

“Was she protecting them? It’s clear that she was withholding information.”

Beelzebub’s scowl deepened. “I don’t know. Unlikely though. It is more probable that she had begun planning her own ezzzcape and did not want to give anything away that might compromizze it. Dagon izz not the protective type.”

Then their head cocked to the side and Gabriel could practically see the lightbulb go off over their head.

“Who wazz the first angel to go mizzing?”

“Why?” Gabriel asked, almost defensively. He knew it was important that they both had all the relevant information, but he wasn’t ready to start giving out actual names. Not yet.

Beelzebub gave him an annoyed look. “Because, birdbrain, it might be important.”

Begrudgingly, Gabriel reached inside his own coat and pulled out a similar, though much cleaner and more orderly, folder. Flipping it open, he began shifting through the documents when the stack was unceremoniously snatched out of his hands.

_“Excuse you,”_ Gabriel hissed. Beelzebub paid him no mind though and turned through the reports until they found what they were looking for.

“Earth Observation Department,” they stated. They continued their search. “And another one...hmm...Prayer Review Department....there are three of those…”

“Give that back,” Gabriel demanded, reaching across the rickety table to try and retrieve the folder. Beelzebub dodged him. “That is confidential information.”

“Keep your feathers straight, you overgrown pigeon,” they said, holding the file just out of reach when Gabriel made another attempt for them. “I don’t care about your angelzzz. This is research.”

Gabriel huffed, and slumped back into his chair, arms crossed over his chest. _“Rude.”_

Beelzebub ignored him and continued to read on. They had now counted four angels from the Earth Observation Department, six from Prayer Review, and another five from Miracle Receipt Evaluation.

“How many of your mizzing angelzz had direct contact with Earth?” they asked. Across the table, Gabriel was watching them closely, as though worried that they might suddenly decide to set the records alight. Maybe they should, just to see his reaction.

“None,” he answered immediately. “Just the traitorous principality. And that is not a mistake we are stupid enough to repeat twice.”

Beelzebub rolled their eyes. _That’s debatable._

“I _meant_, how many of them would have some form of communication directly from Earth. _Like this._” They waved one of the Prayer Review reports at Gabriel. “How many would know, without a filter, what wazz happening down here?”

Gabriel took a moment to think about that. Most of the departments would, in some regard, have a general understanding of the comings and goings of Earth. Few were likely to take much interest in it though. His own department, for instance, and all the angels that reported directly to him, Uriel, and Sandalphon, would not have much time or need to keep up with the nitty-gritty.

“Some,” he eventually answered. “All angels are allowed access to observe the ongoings of Earth, but most don't. The departments with consistent contact, by necessity, would be Earth Observation, Prayer Review, Miracle Receipts, and FRM - Faith Relations Management.”

Beelzebub raised an eyebrow and spread all the files across the table. Gabriel looked down at them.

Earth Observation. Prayer Review. Miracle Receipts. Faith Relations Management.

“There izz your common denominator - for all except one.”

There was only one outlier - Michael.

Well that was...something. Gabriel had assumed the odd behavior was something more to due to individual personality rather than position and all his digging had been from that angle. But if Beelzebub was correct, then this opened up a whole new world of possible explanations.

“Stop thinking so hard - you’re going to hurt yourzzelf.”

Gabriel scowled at them, and then turned back to the files.

“Fine, alright, let’s say that this has something to do with Earth itself,” he reasoned. “There could be a million different excuses, if that’s the case. And if _your_ kind started this trend, then there is always the chance then that my angels only left to deal with whatever chaos your demons were wreaking. So this could, potentially, be considered all your fault!”

Clearly believing he finally had the upper hand, Gabriel sat tall in his seat and stared down his nose at them.

Beelzebub’s lips curled.

_“Or,”_ they countered, “Perhapz they thought that my renegadezz had the right idea. If they hold up Crowley azz an example, than Earth would offer them a kind of freedom not found in Heaven or Hell – for a while at least. If demonz could have it, why not them?”

Then Beelzebub suddenly tilted their head to the side again as another thought occurred to them.

“What doezz Heaven believe happened to the Principality Aziraphale?”

“He was punished,” Gabriel stated simply, as though the answer should have been obvious. “We didn’t disclose the particulars. Besides, there is no way for them to _actually _know what became of him.”

Beelzebub snorted. “Unless the _observed_ him.”

Gabriel paled. _Oh. Oh no._ He hadn’t considered that. If any of the angels had been watching Aziraphale…well, that wouldn’t look very good for Heaven, would it? It was clear what they would see – a traitor, one of the two beings stupid enough to try and stop the Great Plan, living on Earth quietly and openly happy with his demon lover and no consequences. Aziraphale still had his bookshop, still had his power – heck, even had a cottage in South Downs where he and the demon Crowley were playing Happy Family. They would have no idea about the attempted executions. It would be enough to give anyone – and Gabriel shivered at the thought – _rebellious_ ideas.

This was Not Good.

“Do you think that angels and demons are going to Earth to _be together?”_ The trepidation and mild disbelief was clear in his voice.

“That is a possibility,” they said slowly. “But if more demonz are at large than angelzz, it doezz not account for everyone.”

“So, what else then? They just all conveniently decided that Earth would be a nicer place to live?”

Beelzebub shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe the traitorzz have decided to raizze their own army.”

The last part had been meant as a joke – after all, the idea of those two idiots leading legions was nothing short of comical. They didn’t exactly instill confidence. But when they looked over at Gabriel, it was clear from the sudden panic in his eyes that he didn’t find it quiet so humorous.

“Calm down, dumbazz, I didn’t mean it.”

_“But it could be true.” _The amount of horror in his voice was almost pathetic.

They wanted very much to reach up and smack him. “If either of those morons is capable of leading an army, then I will eat my own shoe.”

“But it’s a possabili –“

“_No_, it is not!” they hissed, throwing up their hands. “You know what, I am done with thizz. We could sit here an speculate for dayz and get nowhere.”

“What, exactly, do you suggest we do then?” Gabriel scoffed.

Beelzebub leaned across the table and sneered at him. Gabriel to lean backward, almost upending his chair. “We need _real_ answerz, not shitty hypothesezz. Which in my opinion, meanzz finding the only person, _or people,_ who might actually have them.”

He wrinkled his nose. He did not want to face Michael, though he would not admit that to the Prince of Hell. Facing Michael meant facing the idea that she might be just as much a traitor as Aziraphale. That was something he just wasn’t ready to deal with yet.

“We will leave tomorrow,” Beelzebub decided. “You will meet me in La Fontaine Park in Montreal at ten in the morning, and we will _track them down.”_

All Gabriel could do was nod. A knot twisted in the pit of his stomach.

“Good. _Don’t be late_.”

Without warning, Hellfire burst forth and swallowed the Lord of the Flies. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, and in its wake, Gabriel was left once again engulfed by cold, clammy darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of imagine Gabriel as that person who gets kicked out of Halloween haunted houses for punching one of the actors.
> 
> Also, some real Michael/Dagon will be in the next chapter! I am actually really exciting to write them, and am considering making them a bigger part of the plot than I had originally intended.
> 
> As always, please leave kudos and a comment to let me know what you think!


	4. This is Our Getting-Along Shirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabriel and Beelzebub attempt to work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! This fic is not abandoned! I can't even begin to count the number of times I have tried writing this chapter. But I have come to accept the fact that this story is going to have a mind of its own and gives exactly zero fucks about my plans for it. Sorry to disappoint, but Michael and Dagon do not actually make their grand entrance until the next chapter. But fear not! It is almost done and I am just editing it now. It will be posted in a day or two.

Tracking down Dagon and Michael would ultimately prove to be a significantly more challenging task then either Beelzebub or Gabriel could have expected. 

Beelzebub had arrived at La Fontaine Park earlier than their appointed 10:00 am, and had spent the last hour or so on a bench observing the humans as then came and went. Careful to magically shield themselves from the curiosity of humans, they took numerous mental notes as to the current fashions, mannerisms, and shifts in speech, annoyed with how much things had changed since they had last spent any prolonged time on Earth.

Though they had never had much concern for doing so before, blending in was going to be a point of importance on this hunt. The longer they could keep Dagon and Michael unaware of their presence in the city, the better chance they had of catching them. And besides, though they didn't know Gabriel well, they knew enough to understand that “self-aware” was not a part of his usual brand. One of them needed to be cognizant of it.

By the time Gabriel arrived, promptly at ten and looking very much as he ever did, Beelzebub had already altered their clothes, softened their appearance, and was generally pleased with their observations of modern human conduct. They did not immediately acknowledge him presence, though he stood only a few paces away, and instead let him stand there eyeing them until he started to fidget, uncertain of how to approach them in such a public setting.

“It iz considered poor mannerzz to stare, feather-brain,” they drawled, eventually turning their eyes to him once they were content with his level of discomfort. Gabriel straightened as though offended and frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, but thinking better of it, closed it again and continued to stare.

Beelzebub stared back, but when Gabriel did not resume his nervous fidgeting, they frowned.

“Sit,” they demanded, gesturing to the open space next to them. “We have strategiezz to discuzz.”

Gabriel did so with only mild reluctance, but made it clear by the look on his face how much he disliked being so close to them. They would have been annoyed by his disrespect if the feeling wasn’t mutual.

“What could we possibly need to discuss?” he asked, his nose wrinkling. They might have cleaned up well enough, but they were still a demon and the underlying stench of brimstone was horribly evident. How did Michael stand it? “This isn't a complicated mission. We know Michael and Dagon are here. We just have to find them, drag them back home, get whatever information we can out of them, and then decide on a suitable punishment for their disgraceful conduct.”

Beelzebub rolled their eyes at his naivety.

“And how exzzactly do you think we are going to accomplish that?” they countered. “Just walk around for a few hourzz and hope they zzhow up? And that they come quietly? Do you have any idea how big this city izz? Spare us both and uzze the brian I am forced to azzume you have.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows pulled together in concentration and his eyes shifted to stare down at the pavement. They let him roll the ideas around in silence, turning away after a while to watch a man trying to wrangle two impressively large dogs a ways down the path.

“We should try to find where the Observation photo was taken,” he said after a while. “If nothing else, it gives us a starting point - somewhere we know they've been.”

Beelzebub nodded their head slowly, considering the merit of the suggestion.

“Yezz. It may take a few dayzz, but it izz a starting point.”

Gabriel’s head snapped back up, looking stricken. “_Days?!_ I can’t spend days down here! I have work to do!”

Beelzebub glowered at him and, saying nothing, stood from the bench and began walking toward the edge of the park.

“Wait!” he called. But they didn’t. Moments later however, Gabriel was keeping pace beside them.

“Fine, okay. We’ll see how this goes and take it from there. But I have to ask you one question.” He paused long enough for Beelzebub to glance sideways up at him.

“Yezz?”

Gabriel smiled condescendingly. “What in _Heaven’s name _are you wearing?”

Beelzebub walked faster.

******

_Days_ ended up being an optimistic prediction – something that irked Beelzebub in particular because of how much they hated being optimistic.

Days flowed into weeks – weeks into a month – one month into two, and Beelzebub was beginning to get the sinking suspicion that Dagon and Michael weren’t in Montreal anymore.

It was not the first time they had entertained the idea. After the first few weeks of returning to Hell in the wee hours of the morning empty handed and with no further leads, the doubt had started to settle in. It shouldn’t have surprise them - their sudden presence in Montreal, as well as Gabriel’s, would have been hard for either Dagon or Michael to miss. And if they had already been on their guard, it would have given them more than enough reason to pick up and run. 

In more recent weeks, Beelzebub had begun a list of all possible alternate locations that the pair might go to lay low for a while. They had a wall full of notes and possibilities. Cities were currently at the top of their list – the bigger, the better. Easier to get lost in the crowd. London was obviously off the table, and they had also disregarded St. Petersburg. Though they couldn’t make any estimation of Michael, but they knew Dagon wasn’t stupid enough to go back to the same city twice. There were a few others that they were considering the dismissal of, but they would hold off until Gabriel returned and could weigh in from an angelic perspective.

That was another turn of events that still made Beelzebub’s skin crawl. After three weeks of somewhat cooperative tracking, it had become clear that their approach was not yielding results. Leading up to that point, they had set up appointments – five or six hours at a time on four out of seven days a week – to meet at La Fontaine and snoop around one area or another of the city looking for hints or clues. Sometimes they would explore crowded tourist attractions, or residential streets, and sometimes they would just find a bench and sit to watch the faces of passers-by, looking for one or another that was familiar.

The idea to change their approach had ultimately been Beelzebub’s, though they loathed every part of it. Efficiency was not always comfortable, but it was necessary. Especially considering that the chaos in Heaven and Hell were getting rather worse than better. Time was of the essence.

So after much argument, and no small amount of manipulation on their part, Gabriel eventually agreed and they did the unthinkable.

They set up an Earth-based headquarters. Together.

The only things that made the situation bearable were that it was a large space for just two people, and that they had decided to do their work in shifts. Gabriel would go out and gather intel during the day, and Beelzebub would stalk around at night. They hardly needed to see each other, and besides the occasional conversation to go over observations or ideas, they rarely needed to speak. It was a fucked over arrangement, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

The responses from both their sides, however, had been predictably dramatic. 

Beelzebub was convinced that they had gotten the worst reaction, but the way Gabriel moaned and complained at any opportunity about Uriel and Sandalpon’s overbearing behavior, you’d think they’d gone ahead and clipped his wings. Instead, they had begun demanding daily updates and would personally stop in every now and then (and always while Beelzebub was out) to make sure everything was as professional as it should be. 

Meanwhile, though they had refrained from increasing their paperwork, the Dark Council had made it painfully clear what would happen if Beelzebub so much as stepped a single toe out of line. Any hint of betrayal, and they would meet a fate far worse than the one they’d tried to impose on Crowley.

Domineering siblings hardly compared with bodily torture.

They scowled at their reflection in the window. It was a dreary, overcast evening in October and though the rain hadn’t yet started, it had been threatening to for nearly an hour. Beelzebub was in their earthly office – one of the apartment’s four spacious bedrooms that had been converted for their use, with another one converted for Gabriel across the hall. At the moment though, no work was getting done. Instead they were comfortably lounging at one end of their sofa by the window, enjoying the warmth emanating from the small metal heater installed there. There was a stack of reports from Hastur that they had been reading through shuffled together on the cushion next to them, and scattered over the low coffee table was the remains of their recent Five Guys order - strategically purchased and eaten with just enough time to let it stink up the place before Gabriel got back and their shift turned over. With any luck, he was having a shitty day out in the gloomy weather and the fast food stink would wind him up more than usual.

The mental image of Gabriel’s face scrunched in disgust made the corners of their mouth turn up.

From their place on the couch, Beelzebub could hear Gabriel’s heavy footsteps coming up the building’s main corridor, followed shortly by the jingle of keys and then the turning of a lock. His footsteps echoed as he moved through the nearly empty dining room, paused, and then continued down the hall. They didn't bother turning their attention away from the window.

This was their routine. Gabriel would come back in the evening and head for his office - either keeping the door shut and giving no acknowledgement to Beelzebub’s presence or otherwise heading straight back to Heaven. Either way, a report would appear on their desk by morning, detailing anything he’d noticed that could possibly be construed as a clue. They would read it over, become frustrated with its complete lack of any real evidence, and then write their own useless report for him to find in the later on. 

Beelzebub’s scowl deepened. If tonight didn't go well, they were going to need to reconsider their current strategy. They were wasting their efforts here.

Their eyes flicked over to the opposite wall. It was poked full of tiny holes from the number of thumbtacks holding up their collection of pictures, notes and reports – all scribbled over with highlighter and red pen.

They were startled out of their pessimistic thoughts, however, when their office door creaked open and Gabriel’s face appeared.

He stood in the doorway, noticeably eager and let his eyes wander over the state of the room. It was a disaster; they were well aware. There were clothes thrown all around, as well as old dishes and the remains of numerous take-away orders. The place smelled of grease and mild rot. Just like home.

Beelzebub turned to look at him and feigned boredom.

“Yezzzzzz?” they buzzed, dragging out the noise because they knew how it irritated him. He turned from the mess to wrinkle his nose at its owner. 

“Would it kill you to clean in here? How can you possibly work in all this filth? It stinks.”

Beelzebub blinked at him slowly.

Gabriel’s grimace deepened and after a moment’s hesitation, he moved from the doorway and stepped further into the room. Beelzebub’s hackles went up automatically. Despite their relative cohabitation, there had been the clear though unspoken rule that their respective offices were very strictly _off limits_.

As though sensing the shift in their mood, Gabriel paused in his next step and shot them an annoyed look, which they very mockingly returned. From under the couch, Fly’s fluffy black body appeared, and they scuttled on their little legs over to Gabriel’s shiny black shoes. He instantly jumped back and nearly slipped on a McDonald’s burger wrapper.

“Don’t be difficult,” he admonished. “I have _news_.”

Beelzebub continued to glare, but Fly backed away, crawling over and borrowing into the nest of dirty clothes they’d built by the radiator.

“What kind of newzz?”

“_Important_ news!” he boasted, regaining his cocky disposition and looking very pleased with himself. “I have a lead!”

Beelzebub raised an eyebrow, but Gabriel did not elaborate.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I found?” he said eventually.

“No.” 

Gabriel huffed. “You’re awful. I was so excited that I came back early, and you don’t even have the decency to pretend to be enthusiastic.”

They rolled their eyes at him. “Fine.” And with as much fake cheer as they could muster, they asked, _“What did you find?”_

“You are very rude,” he frowned, shaking his head. “I have found someone who knows Michael and Dagon.”

All things considered, that was significantly more productive news than Beelzebub had expected.

“A human?” they asked.

“Of course it's a human! A female human. She works at a cafe in Little Italy.” His self-satisfied smile spread wide across his face.

“And?”

His smile drooped. “And what?”

“And how do you know that she knowzz them?”

“Oh!” he shifted a few steps closer to the couch and Beelzebub leaned further back against the cushions. “She recognized my last name.”

And then he was handing something to them. A small, thin, and shiny piece of plastic. After a moment, Beelzebub took the credit card and gazed down at the blocky letters.

Gabriel C. Lemuel 

“What doezz the C stand for?”

“That is unimportant. Please stay focused.” Gabriel chided, planting himself at the other end of the sofa. Beelzebub very much wanted to kick him off it. How dare he so casually invade their space.

He reached over the stack of reports and pointed at the card. “‘Lemuel’ is a name that many of us have used whenever we are needed on Earth for extended periods of time. It means ‘Devoted to God’ – it’s a little plain, but it works. Humans don't like it if you only have one name. The important thing is that apparently Michael is still using it.”

“And you are certain of thizz?”

“Yes! Quite certain,” he beamed. “I went to the cafe to purchase a coffee, you know, for _aesthetics_” – he inserted finger quotes here – “and when I handed her my card, she looked at the name and asked if I was related to a woman named Michelle who used to live in the area.”

_Used to live in the area_. Huh. Beelzebub had been right then. They weren’t here anymore.

“And of course, I told her yes,” Gabriel continued. “I knew she meant Michael, but you know how humans can get about _names _and _genders_.” He waved his hand flippantly. “Then she started telling me about how much the staff missed seeing her and her wife now that they had moved to the States and wanted to know how they were settling in.”

Beelzebub turned over the news in their head, letting their fingers rub over the gold letters on the card. _She and her wife_ made them want to puke, but the rest of it was helpful. 

“Were you able to find out what area of the ZZtatez they have gone to?”

Gabriel’s smile faltered again. “Not...exactly. She asked about some new job as an assistant or something, but she didn't mention a company and I’m not entirely sure who it was that was taking the job.” He cringed at the idea of Michael stooping so low as to take a human job. Especially one in which she was anyone’s assistant. “It may also have been a front.”

Beelzebub hummed. It wasn’t perfect information, but it was a significant improvement. Getting up from the couch, they crossed the room to look at their wall of notes. With a wave of their hand, everything not pertaining to the United States fell to the floor. That narrowed it down nicely.

“We have a name,” they said, and a new note appeared on the wall. MICHELLE LEMUEL. “And a country. That iz zzomething we can track.”

“Would Dagon have a second name?” Gabriel asked, still seated on the sofa. Beelzebub hummed again.

“No,” they said after a while. “Dagon had no need to be on Earth. She haz no azzigned or ztandard surname.”

“What if --” Gabriel began, but then his jaw clicked shut. They turned and looked at him expectantly. However, whatever he had been about to say was clearly giving him some cause for distress. 

“Yezz?” they prompted, but he stayed silent. _“Gabriel.”_

“No, I refuse to even think it.” It looked as though the idea was causing him physical pain. “I won't voice it. It's _wrong_.”

Beelzebub scoffed at his dramatics. “Thizz whole fucking zzzzituation is _wrong, _dipstick. Spit it out.”

Gabriel whined. “What if – I mean – would it be possible that Dagon might also be using the same surname? That’s what married humans do, isn’t it? They share a surname.”

The idea made Beelzebub shift uncomfortably. “That’s dizgusting.”

But nevertheless, another note appeared next to the first that read: DAGON LEMUEL?

They both stared at it and frowned.

And then a thought occurred to Beelzebub. _She and her wife._ That could easily be a front used to explain their relationship to humans, but what if it wasn’t? 

Beelzebub turned sharply to look at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 9:00 pm. Perfect.

Turning on their heels, they grabbed a coat that had been tossed on the floor, and then reached for the small black backpack that had been thrown in a nearby corner. As if reading Beelzebub’s mind, Fly scurried out of their nest and squished themselves into the bag.

“I have an idea. I will be back in the morning.” They hurried to shove their arms into their coat sleeves while simultaneously making a note on their phone of where they would need to go.

Gabriel short to his feet. “Where are you going?! We need to keep brainstorming! This is the first lead we’ve had in _months_!”

“I have thingzz to zee to.” They threw the pack over the shoulder and strode out into the hallway.

“But we need to talk about this!”

It was too late though – Beelzebub was already gone, front door slamming shut behind them, leaving Gabriel to fret alone in their office.

******

By the time they returned, they were soaking wet from the torrential downpour that had finally begun outside, but were still reasonably proud of themself. It had taken hours, and they had needed to exercise more lurking than they ever had in recent centuries combined, but they had answers and plan was already beginning to formulate in their mind.

What they hadn’t expected though, was to find Gabriel still present and waiting in the living room when they walked through the front door. He was stretched out across the large sofa, arms tense and crossed over his chest, and he was dressed far more casually than Beelzebub had ever seen him. The television affixed to the opposing wall was on, casting a quick sequence of flashing colors over the room, but no sound was playing. He looked up as they entered.

“Where on earth have you been?” Gabriel demanded as soon as the front door was closed. Beelzebub was rather taken aback by his tone, and could only stand there and stare at him. “We were in the middle of something. Something important! And I texted you – many times! What the _fuck _is wrong with you?”

Beelzebub resisted the urge flinched. They were well aware that Gabriel often swore when he was upset – they had heard him do so on several occasions over the last couple of months – but it always sounded unnatural to them. Very unangelic.

“Would you like a lizzt?” they snapped back, placing their pack on the dining table and unzipping it for Fly to wiggle out. They dropped their wet coat on the polished wood floor.

“This is _serious_. If we don’t jump on this, they are going to get away again!”

Beelzebub made no reply. Instead, they pulled a miraculously dry file out of their pack and, moving into the living room, deposited it on the coffee table.

“They’re married,” they hissed. “_Legally_ married. It izn’t a front – thezze are their recordz. I know Dagon’s signature. They’re real.”

Gabriel gaped at them and then down at the file. “You _stole _their records? You _broke into the courthouse?_”

Beelzebub raked their hands down their face in frustration and groaned. There was no winning with angels.

“Fuck the courthouzzze,” they sneered. “Your lead iz a good one. it’s got us back on their trail. But _thiz _givezz us the little extra we need to find them. For both our zzakes, stifle your law-abiding morality with the understanding that we are finally _clozzing in on them._”

Gabriel looked like he wanted to argue, but thought better of it. Reaching for the file, he flipped it open and rummaged through its contents.

Beelzebub hadn’t lied. Their marriage certificate was signed and stamped from April 3rd – only about a week after Michael went missing. The license request form was a little more than a month older than that – about the same time that Dagon’s reports stopped coming in. And though he couldn't be trusted to recognize Dagon’s handwriting, he knew Michael’s and it was genuine. 

Staring at the paperwork, something in Gabriel crumbled. He wasn’t sure what it was – maybe some sort of last-ditch, desperate, _delusional _hope that they had read into the situation all wrong – but it died as his fingers traced the looping M on her signature. She truly had abandoned Heaven, eloped with a demon, and was now on the run - _from him._ Her own brother. There was no more denying it when the proof was staring him in the face.

“Why would she do this?” he asked in a low voice – more to himself than to Beelzebub – his throat constricting with the unfamiliar emotions. He was hunt and betrayed, but he was also very scared. If there had been any way possible to twist her actions into something excusable, he would have done it without a second thought. She was his sister and he would have done whatever needed to protect her from punishment – no matter how angry he was. But this...there was no way he could twist this.

“Don’t you dare cry.” Beelzebub’s buzzed, looming over him. “I’m leaving if you cry.”

Gabriel closed the file and set it back down on the coffee table. He couldn't look at them right now and instead chose to watch the dark spots multiplying on the area rug as water dripped down from Beelzebub’s hair.

“What’s our next step then?” he asked, forcing neutrality back into his voice.

“We have both their human namez now, and we have a general idea of where they’ve gone - a very general idea, but it’zz something. I alzo think there might be merit in looking into the job mentioned by the human in the cafe.” 

“A human job? Do you really think they’re so desperate?”

Beelzebub scowled at Gabriel. “Yezzz, I do. They have been gone for five monthz now, and at no point has a bill come in to Hell from Dagon. I can only azzume the same of Michael?” Gabriel nodded glumly. “We have alzo received no notice of miraclez that can be attributed to her. They must be getting money from somewhere.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and considered this. Michael had ceased all miracles the moment she disappeared, and her ethereal credit card had been found among the possessions she’s left behind. She had made a clean cut – had done her best to make sure they couldn't track her. Once again, Beelzebub was right.

“Alright. So we have their human pseudonyms and there’s a good chance that they also hold human jobs. That’s all good to know, but how exactly do we go about locating them?”

Beelzebub’s scowl turned up into a nasty grin. “We do what the humanz would do – we uzze the internet.”

******

Gabriel had, in truth, been exceptionally skeptical at the idea of consulting the internet. This was an ethereal and occult matter - surely such a silly human invention could not help them.

He was proven wrong in a matter of hours, however. He and Beelzebub were still in the living room, convening now over a laptop that barely looked like it had any right to turn on, let alone properly function. Gabriel watched in awe from over their shoulder as Beelzebub’s nimble fingers punched away at the keys and sorted through page after page of possible information.

Eventually, they got a hit that rang true. It was from the website of a print house in New York City. There was no identifying picture, or even a little write up, but in the fine print at the bottom of a web page detailing the life and accomplishments of the company’s CEO was the line, ‘_for all questions and inquiries, as well as any media requests, please contact Dagon Teivel, Executive Assistant to the CEO, at…’_

Underneath it was her contact information, as well as the address of the company.

Gabriel and Beelzebub sat back and stared at the screen.

“So…New York,” Gabriel said after a beat. “Well, at least they didn’t go very far.” He tried to lighten the mood with a half-hearted chuckle, but it fell flat. Beside him, Beelzebub sat very stiff and very still. Slowly, their pale hand reached up and closed the laptop.

They sat in silence.

When it became uncomfortable however – despite Gabriel trying to wrack his brain for something more to say – Beelzebub stood, picked up the laptop, and exited the living room. Moments later, their office door creaked open and then clicked shut. Gabriel was once again left on his own to ponder what they had found, and what to do next.


	5. Lovers Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They couldn't hide forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here they are. Michael and Dagon - Dagon and Michael. The ship I never really considered and am now far too attached to.

In the two days that followed their discovery, Gabriel found himself – though he was still uncomfortable with the notion – worrying about Beelzebub. 

In that time, they had thoroughly studied a map of New York, zeroing in on the print house and familiarizing themselves with everything in the surrounding area. They were going completely incognito this time around. No miracles, no supernatural auras, just complete human disguises - something they probably should have done coming into Montreal, but their eagerness had made them short-sighted.

Despite their diligent preparation however, Gabriel had noticed a change in Beelzebub’s mood. Usually always quick to mock him and call him names – they had suddenly become strangely withdrawn. Uncertain. Everything had to be double and triple checked, and they had begun acknowledging questions with only one or two syllable answers. They were still cooperating with him, but there was an undertone of anxiety that put Gabriel on edge.

He had even put more effort into being annoying just to get a rise out of them. But all he got in return was a blank stare.

“Alright, so correct me if I’ve forgotten anything,” Gabriel began again, reiterating their plan for the third time that morning. “We will miracle into Newark and suppress our auras so that they can’t feel us coming. From there on out, we are doing things the human way. We will take a train into Penn Station and find Dagon’s print house. After snooping around a bit, we’ll see if we can pick up any traces of either her or Michael in the immediate area. Once we’ve got a trail, we’ll track it straight to them.”

“Yezz.”

“Did I leave anything out?”

“No.”

“Anything you’d like to add?”

They ignored him.

Gabriel frowned. He was sitting on the living room sofa, waiting patiently as Beelzebub shoved a notebook, the courthouse file, and various other things into their pack and shuffling it all around to make sure that there was still room for Fly to comfortably hide. They were dressed in a horrifically human style - black jeans full of ghastly holes, an over-sized red jumper with a very rude word knitted across the front, and trainers that looked like something they’d brought up from Hell.

Gabriel had a great fondness for human fashion in general, but he found that Beelzebub’s interpretation of it lacked all aesthetic.

Finally zipping the bag closed, they threw one strap over their shoulder and moved to unlatch the front door. Rising from the couch, Gabriel followed them out the door and down the hall.

******

Arriving in Penn Station, Gabriel was reminded of why he had never much liked New York. There were a lot of places on Earth that he wasn't particularly fond of, and New York in particular had always felt unusually dirty. He could never quite pinpoint though if it was because of how physically filthy it was, or if it was because of how much sin permeated the city. Beelzebub, following only two paces behind him, made no noise. They only stared ahead with an unreadable expression.

They knew exactly which streets to take to get to the print house, and though the walk was long, it was easy and straightforward. The building itself was monstrously tall and its glass walls reflected blue and black in the midday sun.

They made two laps around the building, withholding their own auras as they tried to reach out with their ethereal and occult senses to pick up any indications of Dagon’s recent activity. On the third lap, Beelzebub hesitated near one of the back doors.

“Here,” they said, and Gabriel turned around from where he’d walked on ahead. He wandered back over to them.

Beelzebub was scanning the area intently. “It’zz a couple of dayz old, but Dagon was here. More than once.” They shuffled around the small back alley between the print house and the building next to it. “Thiz iz how she comes in.”

“Can I help you two?”

Gabriel spun around to find a human, dressed from head to two in a black uniform, watching them. His stance was clearly defensive and his eyes regarded them warily, as though expecting conflict. The gold badge on his chest read _Security_.

Beelzebub pulled their lips back in a snarl. But Gabriel, trying to think quickly, stepped to the side just enough to block them from the security guard's view.

“I sure hope so!” he said, plastering the fake smile on his face that usually put humans at ease. “I’m afraid we’re a little lost. You see, my sister’s wife works here and we were going to surprise her – it’s been so long since we’ve visited New York. We were told to go in through the back door, but we can’t seem to find it.”

The guard looked Gabriel up and down, clearly uncertain about whether to believe him or not. He could feel Beelzebub move to stand beside him – their crop of black hair visible only in his peripheral.

“Sorry folks, the building is closed today - there’s big maintenance on the heating system.”

Gabriel made himself frown here. “Goodness, that’s unfortunate.”

The guard's eyes flicked briefly down to Beelzebub and then back to him. “I’ll tell you what, why don't you give your sister a call and I’ll help you folks find you way back to the street.”

It was phrased to sound helpful, but Gabriel could hear the threat.

“Wish I could,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re from out of the country though - can’t use our phones here. No international plan, ya know? But hey, maybe you can point us in the right direction. Do you know where Dagon Teivel lives?”

The guard looked taken aback for a moment, giving them both another good once-over.

“You’re Michelle’s brother? She never mentioned siblings.”

Gabriel’s grin returned, and he could almost feel Beelzebub’s surprise. “Yes! I am.” He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out his wallet. Thumbing through it, he extracted an ID and passed it to the guard. “Gabriel Lemuel.”

“Huh,” was all the guard said, examining both sides of the card before handing it back. “Can’t help you though, I’m afraid. Company policy – employee information is confidential. But on a day like today I don’t think they’d be home anyway.”

“Ah, I see,” Gabriel relented, returning the wallet to its pocket. “I guess we’ll just have to find some way to get in touch, huh?” He nudged Beelzebub good-naturedly and they had to resist the urge to shrug away from him.

“Let me help you folks get back to the street,” the guard offered again, but this time there was no underlying threat in his words.  


Once the building was several blocks behind them, Beelzebub looked sidelong up at Gabriel.

“That wazzz...almost imprezzive.”

Gabriel smiled and tried to shrug his shoulders nonchalantly. “Not my fault humans are easily fooled.”

Beelzebub regarded him strangely.

“You lied.”

Gabriel made a noise that indicated he didn’t entirely agree with that assessment. “It was an inconsequential fib. And for the greater good, besides.”

Beelzebub gave an ungraceful snort before stopping dead in their tracks. Gabriel stopped and waited, but they remained rooted in place, staring at nothing. After a moment, Gabriel turned his awareness to his surroundings to see if he could pick up on whatever Beelzebub had.

_Ah, there it is._ The traces were faint, but still fresher than the one by the building. Hours old, instead of days. He could feel Michael here too, and more strongly than Dagon, but that probably had more to do with them both being angels.

“How long ago do you think they were here?” he asked. Beelzebub tipped their head from one side and then to the other, thinking.

“Three hours. Maybe four.” 

Their eyes moved to focus on something just past Gabriel and they forged on ahead. He hastened to keep pace, longer legs be damned – or, well, you know.

He kept his eyes firmly on Beelzebub, but his senses sharp on the trial. Hurrying up one street and then another, the trail stayed strong, and was getting stronger. Humans brushed past them, some stepping awkwardly aside as they ploughed onward and others cursing them as they bumped shoulders.

Ahead of them, a park opened up and without bothering to check traffic, Beelzebub advanced across the street – the shouts from angry drivers lost in the honking of horns and revving of engines.

They were nearly across the park when Gabriel was suddenly accosted with a sensation that he had not been at all prepared for. Halting completely, he blinked in quick succession, looking this way and that to try and locate its source.

“What the fuck izz wrong with you?” Beelzebub called from a few yards ahead, having stopped when they realized the great oaf was no longer following.

“Love,” he said.

“What?”

_“Love,”_ Gabriel repeated. “And a great ton of it. Definitely not Human.” He turned to look at them. “Can’t you feel it?”

They growled at him. “Of course not!”

Gabriel hardly heard them though. Pushing on across the park he could feel it getting stronger with every step.

“Hey! _Hey!_” Beelzebub called, trying not to fall behind. Soon they found themselves staring up at the back of an enormous tan building that was several stories tall and at least a couple of blocks wide. And though they would never admit it, they _could _perceive some of the love that had so startled Gabriel. It no doubt fell quite short of what he could feel, but it was still strong enough to tickle at the edge of their senses. 

Dagon and Michael were inside.

“What in Heaven’s name is that?” Gabriel asked. Beelzebub’s hand grabbed his sleeve and dragged him onward.

“It’z a _muzzeum_. The entrance iz this way.”

The place was jam packed with humans – tall ones, short ones, and even itty-bitty ones. Gabriel wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so many humans in one building. Beelzebub still had a grip on his arm, though, and kept pulling him forward, weaving expertly through the crowds. Gabriel stared at the walls as they passed exhibit after exhibit.

It was an art museum, Gabriel realized. Many of the pieces they passed were familiar to him – things he had seen at some point in his long, long life. It was the kind of place that, were he not in the middle of closing in on two very high-profile traitors, he might have enjoyed.

“Do not get dizztracted,” Beelzebub hissed in his ear. “They are clozze. Very clozze. Stay focuzed.”

Gabriel shook the memories of galleries long-past from his mind and re-centered his attention on trying to sniff out Michael. Pulling Beelzebub out of the way of an oncoming tour group, he tried to pinpoint her exact location.

“Another floor up and to the left,” he stated. Beelzebub glanced sideways at him, but after a moment they nodded their acquiescence and were off again.

It was almost surreal when they finally got a visual on them in the impressionist gallery. They had stopped two rooms over but could still see the pair clearly between the hordes of visitors.

They looked as though they didn’t have a care in the world. Michael was dressed nicely in a dove-grey and black plaid suit, a maroon stripe running through it at intervals. The slacks were cut fashionably short and showed off a pair of matching maroon patent-leather loafers with a thick, chunky sole. Though already a tall woman, the extra height made her just tall enough that Dagon could intertwine their fingers and rest her head against Michael’s shoulder. 

Dagon’s own style provided an interesting contrast to Michael’s. An over-sized and well-worn denim jacket covered hung loosely over a grey and green flannel button-up. Her jeans were brown and torn in a similar way to Beelzebub’s, ending just short of her ankles to reveal dusty, lace-up boots.

There was a contentment that radiated from them almost as strongly as the love. More than one person passed them only to look back and smile. And it made Gabriel, for only a moment, want to turn around and leave them be.

“Dizzzzgusting,” Beelzebub whispered, venom dripping from every syllable. But when Gabriel glanced down, he found the same internal conflict written all over their face.

“I suppose...this is it, isn’t it?” he asked. Beelzebub made a noncommittal noise in the back of their throat. “I guess we should, ah, get this over with?”

With evident reluctance, they squared their shoulders and nodded. Putting on a false bravado, they both strode silently across the gallery.

“A truly lovely piece,” Gabriel announced with feigned nonchalance as his sidled up to stand beside Michael. “I always did like what he did with color. One of yours now, I believe?”

Beelzebub appeared beside Dagon, hands clasped unassumingly behind their back. “Yezzz,” they drawled. “And he’zz zztill painting. Though, hiz work tendzz to involve more blood now.”

Between them, Dagon and Michael froze as though doused in ice cold water. Neither moved, their eyes stayed fixed ahead, but every muscle in their bodies tensed. Gabriel, at least, could hear Michael’s pulse pick up.

“What do you think, Michael?” he continued. “I always enjoyed the way he painted the sky in particular – all those swirling little lines. Genius.” 

Michael did not answer, but her lips pressed together in a thin line and her jaw twitched.

“Perhapzz I should commizzzion something when we get back,” Beelzebub interjected. “It would really liven up the office. Don’t you think so, Dagon?”

But Dagon had gone so stock-still that she could have been mistaken for a statue. Her lung function had stopped and even her heart had ceased its beating.

“Well,” Gabriel shifted when it was clear that neither was going to rise to their goading. “This has been lovely – really, it has. But I think it’s time we get going. All of us. We have some very _interesting _matters to discuss with you.”

“_We_ have _nothing _to discuss with you,” Michael hissed, her eyes finally snapping up to meet Gabriel’s. The fire he found in them nearly forced him to take a step back. But instead, he wrapped his hand discreetly around her forearm and squeezed just hard enough to make himself perfectly clear.

“I think you’ll find that you do. Did you really think we wouldn’t come for you?” he asked. Then he lowered his voice and leaned into her personal space. “Come on Mikey, I really don’t want to cause a scene. But I will if I have to.”

When he leaned away, his eyes briefly met Dagon’s and the panic swirling there made his stomach drop in the worst possible way. But he kept his expression neutral and when he turned to leave the gallery, his hand still gripping Michael’s arm, he found that she did not resist him.

******

Beelzebub did not like this. They did not like this one bit.

Leading Dagon and Michael from of the Met had garnered more than a few strange looks, but they had thankfully made it out without anyone trying to intervene. Now they were in a taxi with directions to the apartment that the traitors had been calling home for a little over a month. To say the atmosphere in the cramped space was tense would have been an understatement.

Dagon had managed to regain some of her composure during to walk out of the galleries – her lung function had returned, and her heart was beating again in carefully measured intervals. But her anxiety was still clear in the way she refused to meet their eyes, choosing instead to stare without seeing out the car window; the pointer finger of her left hand tapping out an unsteady beat against her thigh. Her other hand was still tightly laced with Michael’s.

Michael, however, looked ready for a fight. She sat ramrod straight and watched Gabriel with stony defiance, her eyes never leaving him. And Gabriel stared back, no part of his face or posture giving away any emotion. He was perfectly detached and impassive.

It shouldn’t have bothered Beelzebub as much as it did. But after two months of cohabitation, they had become so used to being able to read his every thought just by the look on his face or the way he held himself. This was a side of him they had ever seen, and they found it unnerving.

When the taxi came to a stop, Gabriel quickly paid, and they exited the vehicle. The neighborhood they found themselves in was alright, but still one that Gabriel considered beneath the standards of an archangel. The street was narrow and had too many cars parked along the sides. There was unsightly construction being done on the next block over and all the surrounding buildings were either a sad grey or faded brick. He didn't like the idea of Michael living here.

Dagon pulled a set of keys out of her coat pocket and lead them inside.

The apartment itself wasn’t so bad, Beelzebub thought, though it was still significantly smaller than the one they shared with Gabriel in Montreal.

_Ugh, ew._ What an awful way of phrasing that. _It’z a headquarterzz. We do **not **live together._

The space consisted of four rooms in total: a kitchen that looked surprisingly well used, a combined living room and dining room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. The furniture in the communal areas were clearly second-hand, but still well selected and they filled the space in a way that made it feel warm and inviting. The door to the bedroom was open, and though they didn’t get a good look, they did see a few articles of clothing left on the floor, a tall dresser, and a haphazard, unmade bed with dark blue sheets pulled in every direction. Dagon yanked the door shut as she passed.

They stood uncomfortably in the living room, yet making sure not to show it. Dagon threw herself in an armchair, trying her best to create the illusion of confidence and calm, and Michael perched herself on the arm of the chair, only letting go of Dagon’s hand to drape it over her shoulders. Her gold wedding ring flashed with the movement.

For an awkward beat, no one said anything.

“You wanted to talk, Gabriel. I thought we had things to discuss,” Michael broke the silence, her casual tone conflicting with her hostile smile. “Speak.”

Beelzebub could see Gabriel fighting to maintain his clinical indifference – and failing.

“What the _fuck _were you thinking?” The words spilled out of his mouth, shocking everyone – himself included. But they kept coming. 

“Do you have any idea of the state your disappearance has left Heaven in? We are in _chaos _\- barely holding on to control and losing more angles every day. And you’re running around Earth playing _house _with Hell’s upper management.”

He took a breath to steady himself, but his uneasiness only grew. “I have been _worried sick_ about you! Uriel is furious. This is _so much worse_ than Aziraphale’s treachery –”

“Do try and contain yourself, Gabriel,” Beelzebub droned, growing annoyed with his outburst – in part because of how uncomfortably it hit home. His head snapped around to look at them, evidently having forgotten that they were there. “Thiz izzn’t a social vizzit. This is businezz. Spare us your _feelingzz_.”

“Business my ass,” he barked, turning back to glare at Michael. But there was guilt now playing at the edges of her eyes and it felt like a kick in the gut.

“Why would you do this?” _To me_, was left unspoken.

Michael eyed Gabriel, uncertain, before turning to Dagon. A conversation consisting entirely of micro-expressions passed between the two. The intimacy of it made Gabriel’s heart clench.

“It was a long time coming,” Michael said eventually, letting go of some of the tension in her shoulders with the admission. She looked drained and exhausted. Dagon’s arm snaked around her waist. “Things are changing. The Plan is not what we thought it was.”

Gabriel made a distressed noise. “What do you know about the Plan? Nothing! You know no more about it than we do!”

Beelzebub, who had spent the majority of the interaction watching Gabriel, shifted their attention to regard the couple with a raised brow. First to Michael and then to Dagon. They were surprised, however, to find Dagon’s shrewd silver-grey eyes staring intently back at them.

“We have been focused on the wrong things for far too long! Armageddon was never supposed to succeed –”

They held her gaze, no longer hearing the words that passed between the angels. Dagon cocked her head ever so slightly to the side; a calculating wrinkle forming on her forehead. Beelzebub felt, in that instant, like an insect under a microscope.

“Dear heart,” She suddenly interrupted, the hand around Michael’s waist patting at her hip to get her attention. Michael twisted to look down at her, startled. Dagon’s eyes stayed locked on Beelzebub.

“Why don’t you go visit Maria down at the coffee shop. We haven’t stopped by in a couple days, and she likes you more than me. Take wank-wings with you,” She said, ignoring Michael’s incredulous look.

“I think Lord Beelzebub and I need to have a chat. Alone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, please leave a kudos or drop a comment to let me know what you think!


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